


Maybe

by yuto_da



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Episode, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 12:39:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10697202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuto_da/pseuds/yuto_da
Summary: The episode where Moose gets injured but only this time Kevin is the one who gets harmed and Joaquin hears about it





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Idk man....

Joaquin felt his heart fall into the pits of his stomach.

He heard it from a bunch of guys, sitting together on a table with beers in their dirty hands. They were laughing and making jokes about ‘the guy Mustang fucked up’.

At first, Joaquin didn’t care about the conversation as Mustang fucked up different people on a daily basis but when he heard the name, Kevin Keller, being mentioned by Mustang himself, his interest and anger sky-rocketed.

“The fuck did you do?” Joaquin angrily asked Mustang. The latter male paused in the midst of drinking his beer and slowly turned to face Joaquin. “What did you say?”

The entire bar had quieted down to watch as Joaquin, the youngest member, faced against Mustang, one of the oldest and deadliest gang member of the Southern Serpents.

“I said what the fuck did you do?” Joaquin stood up and went face to face with Mustang. Despite their height difference, Joaquin didn’t falter and stood tall, looking Mustang directly in the eye.

“What did I do about what?” Mustang took a gulp of his beer and resumed playing pool alone as the rest of the men surrounding him and who were playing against him had stopped to watch the show.

“Keller’s son, what the fuck did you do to Keller’s son?”

Mustang smirked, showing off his dirty, stained yellow teeth. Joaquin could see the cracks on some of Mustang’s teeth and inwardly sneered in disgust at the sight.

“Oh, that Sheriff's kid," Mustang shrugged, “Nothing much,” Mustang bent down and aimed at a green ball before releasing his hold on the stick and letting it fly, directly hitting the green ball that caused a chain reaction where it hit the red, then the white which slowly rolled to hit the blue and then ended up knocking the black eight ball into the hole. “We just roughed him up a bit.”

Mustang slowly rose up and looked at Joaquin with that sick smirk still firm on his dry, chapped lips. “You know he’s a fag, right? Probably goes around fucking guys or taking it up the ass,” Mustang laughed and the sound worse than nails on a chalkboard. “It’s freaking disgusting, am I right?” He turned to his friends questioningly and they nodded their heads in agreement.

And Joaquin hadn’t thought his body, his very being, was capable of holding so much anger but at that moment, Joaquin –in the simplest of terms- was absolutely livid.

He didn’t know why he even spoke up to Mustang nor did he know why he did what he did. A young member like him was –as he had been graciously reminded once before- _replaceable_  and in doing what he did, the chances of him staying in the gang was –compared to Mustang’s- exceedingly low.

Joaquin moved back a few inches and let his right fist fly, knocking Mustang in the jaw and making the older male’s head twist to the other side. His knuckles were on fire but Joaquin ignored that and grabbed the pool stick that Mustang held. He lifted the stick and gripped it tightly before twisting slightly and delivering a hard hit to the back of Mustang’s head, who fell to the ground, unconscious.

Joaquin dropped the stick and stared at Mustang’s unconscious for a second before walking out of the bar and to his bike. He didn’t bother with the helmet and simply climbed on the two-wheeled deathtrap, starting up the engine; Joaquin sat down and began driving towards the Riverdale Hospital.

 

Joaquin arrived at the hospital and didn’t hesitate for a second. Running up to the receptionist desk, he slammed his hands –palms down- on the desk and demanded to know the room where Kevin Keller was in.

The startled receptionist thought about calling security to take away the frizzled young man but thought against it when she saw how agitated he was. It was in her best interest to simply give the room number away than withhold it and have an angry, agitated teenage boy on her hands.

“Room 320,” She looked at her computer for a second, typing in the last name ‘Keller’ and saying the room number out loud to the young male.

Joaquin wasted no time and simply ran in the direction he hoped was the right one. And after multiple wrong turns and wrong hallways, he found room 320 and burst through the door and startled the occupants inside the room.

“Joaquin?” Kevin was the first to speak, his voice laced with confusion and surprise as if he really couldn’t believe Joaquin was standing in front of him.

“Who’s this?” A raven-haired girl was the second to speak up. Her hair reached her shoulders and was styled in a way that said _I am a person of money._ She was sitting on the bed -on the left side of Kevin- and had turned to size Joaquin from head to toe curiously.

“He’s my…” Kevin seemed to be at a loss of words but decide to settle for, “Acquaintance.”

The raven-haired girl continued eyeing him as well as a blonde girl who had her hair up in a tight-fitted ponytail and was standing on the other side of Kevin. She held in her hands what Joaquin thought was a box of chocolates – the pink color on the box and the words ‘ _Locke,_ ’ – the name of a mildly famous store in Riverdale- written on the side of the box gave it away.

Joaquin disliked being scrutinized like he was at the moment but held in the urge to fidget uncomfortably. He made eye contact with Kevin and glanced outside, indicating with his eyes that he wanted to speak with him privately.

“Uh… Veronica and Betty, would you guys give us a moment alone? Please?” Kevin asked the two girls who looked at each other for a second and simultaneously nodded their heads. Rising from the bed, the raven-haired girl, Veronica and the blonde girl, Betty walked past Joaquin and out of the room, leaving the two males alone together.

It was silent for some time as Joaquin didn’t know what to say and saying sorry didn’t seem like the best thing to start a conversation with. In the end, it was Kevin who broke the silence, bravely looking at Joaquin, he asked, “What are you doing here, Joaquin?”

“I heard you got hurt,” was all Joaquin said, not really answering Kevin’s question but not really evading it either.

Kevin smiled bitterly and looked down at his body. He was covered from waist down by a thin, light blue blanket that looked like I was barely hanging on and could barely provide enough warmth for any living soul. Joaquin hadn’t really looked before when he entered the room but he finally noticed the damage done to the high-schooler. He had bandages on the parts that Joaquin could see the tips of his fingers, his neck and one around his head. He also had bruises that were turning an ugly purple-blue color on his cheeks, jaw and nose which also appeared to be slightly broken.

‘ _This is what they call roughing up?’_ Joaquin thought in his mind, mildly disgusted by the thought of being in a gang that did something so horrible to an innocent high school boy.

“Yeah… they got me pretty good,” Kevin said, “Three broken ribs, a cracked collarbone and a fractured jaw.”

Joaquin walked up closer to Kevin and stopped beside the bed, letting his left leg lean onto the machinery holding up the bed, Joaquin’s fingers twitched with the urge to touch but he forced it down but Kevin had seen the twitch and nodded his head for Joaquin to touch.

“It’s okay. They gave me pain killers a few hours back so it doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kevin snorted out a laugh. “Why’re you apologizing? It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that but still, I…” Joaquin paused for a second, “It’s like I hurt you.”

Kevin sighed and smiled at Joaquin tiredly and Joaquin couldn’t see a teenage boy plagued with worry from exams or the common worries most teenage boys held within them. What he saw was a boy so _tired,_ tired from all the drama that was suddenly sprung upon his town with the death of a boy, son and heir to one of the richest families in that town. What he saw was someone so exhausted by life itself, by living and Joaquin couldn’t stomach seeing that.

Kevin was taken by surprise when he felt Joaquin slowly, tentatively touch his fingers and then gently, so very gently, intertwine their fingers together. It was a simple action. Something that Veronica or Betty, maybe even Archie would have done to him or anyone but it somehow was more than that. Knowing that his acquaintance, lover, boyfriend, whatever it was they were had rushed from God knows where to see him, a boy he met less than two weeks ago, in the hospital melted something inside him.

He wasn’t okay at the moment, his body ached in different places, he was tired and desperately needed rest but he felt that maybe, just maybe with Joaquin by his side, things could be better.


End file.
